R map - poor representation of land borders - r

Question

I map the southern part of the South hemisphere. My issue is Australia which has poorly drawn borders.
My data :
library("maptools")
library("ggplot2")
library("tidyverse")
ylim_map <- c(-90, -30)
xlim_map <- c(-180, 180)
world <- maps::map("world", fill=TRUE, plot=FALSE, ylim = ylim_map)
Convert data in correct format for ggplot :
IDs <- sapply(strsplit(world$names, ":"), function(x) x[1])
world <- map2SpatialPolygons(world, IDs = IDs,
proj4string = CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84"))
world_map <- fortify(world)
world_map <- world_map[which(between(world_map$lat, ylim_map[1], ylim_map[2]) &
between(world_map$lon, xlim_map[1], xlim_map[2])),]
And my plot :
ggplot() +
coord_map("orthographic", orientation = c(-90, 0, 0),
xlim = xlim_map, ylim = c(ylim_map[1], ylim_map[2] + 10)) +
geom_map(data = world_map, map = world_map,
aes(x = long, y = lat, map_id = id), fill = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 180, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "180°E"), color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 90, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "90°E"), angle = -90, color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 0, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "0°"), color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = -90, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "90°W"), angle = 90, color = "black") +
labs(y = "", x = "") +
# Theme
theme(text = element_text(size = 20),
panel.background = element_blank(),
axis.title = element_blank(),
axis.text = element_blank(),
axis.ticks = element_blank(),
axis.line = element_blank(),
aspect.ratio = 1)

Answer 1

TLDR:
You need to close your polygons.
Explanation:
Let's trim away extraneous code & zoom in onto Australia. (Though actually the problem exists for Africa & South America as well; it's just not as obvious there...)
We can see that the top line is misbehaving. It's intersecting with the coastline further down south, rather than sticking to its correct latitude level:
ggplot() +
coord_map("orthographic", orientation = c(-40, 130, 0)) +
geom_map(data = world_map, map = world_map,
aes(x = long, y = lat, map_id=id),
fill = "darkgrey") +
theme_bw()
Now a geom_map layer is essentially plotting polygons, and ?geom_polygon states:
Polygons are very similar to paths (as drawn by geom_path()) except
that the start and end points are connected and the inside is coloured
by fill. The group aesthetic determines which cases are connected
together into a polygon.
If we replace the geom_map layer with its geom_polygon / geom_path equivalents, the situation becomes much more obvious: the polygon corresponding to Australia has no top line. Instead, the path starts at the one corner and ends at the opposite corner. geom_polygon connects them with a straight line, which may intersect other lines when the coordinate system isn't linear (and coord_map isn't):
ggplot() +
coord_map("orthographic",
orientation = c(-40, 130, 0)) +
geom_polygon(data = world_map,
aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group),
fill = "lightgrey") +
geom_path(data = world_map,
aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group)) +
theme_bw()
Solution:
We can manually close each polygon by repeating its first point at the end. (For polygons that are already closed, this has no additional effect.)
library(dplyr)
world_map2 <- world_map %>%
group_by(group) %>% # each group corresponds to a unique polygon
arrange(order) %>% # sort points in the appropriate sequence
slice(c(1:n(), 1)) %>% # repeat first row after last row
mutate(order = seq(1, n())) %>% # define new order for n+1 rows
ungroup()
Check that the polygons are now closed, & the top line for Australia now traces its latitude level nicely:
ggplot() +
coord_map("orthographic",
orientation = c(-40, 130, 0)) +
geom_polygon(data = world_map2,
aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group),
fill = "lightgrey") +
geom_path(data = world_map2,
aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group)) +
theme_bw()
Applying this to the original use case:
ggplot() +
coord_map("orthographic", orientation = c(-90, 0, 0),
xlim = xlim_map, ylim = c(ylim_map[1], ylim_map[2] + 10)) +
geom_map(data = world_map2, map = world_map2,
aes(x = long, y = lat, map_id = id), fill = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 180, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "180°E"), color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 90, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "90°E"), angle = -90, color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = 0, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "0°"), color = "black") +
geom_text(aes(x = -90, y = ylim_map[2]+5, label = "90°W"), angle = 90, color = "black") +
labs(y = "", x = "") +
# Theme
theme(text = element_text(size = 20),
panel.background = element_blank(),
axis.title = element_blank(),
axis.text = element_blank(),
axis.ticks = element_blank(),
axis.line = element_blank(),
aspect.ratio = 1)